BURN OUT - There, I said it

Okay.

It’s time say the word, and admit what happened in mid-February, and why it’s been a month and a half since I posted to my blog, and why Six Foot didn’t go well.

Burnout.

There. I said it.

Looking back on it, I never really gave myself the chance to recover from doing Six Foot in October. The first danger sign was blowing up during the second run in November, the second danger sign was blowing up during the Fat Ass run on New Year’s Day, and the last danger sign was the general lethargy through February. You could see the pattern – unable to complete speed sessions, inability to get up and train, general lethary, etc.

Fine. Lesson learnt. Put in the databank and move on.

I have given my Six Foot Track account at Coolrunning, but will go through it again now.

Drove up to Katoomba on Friday morning and my partner and I spent the bulk of Friday helping Kev out at The Edge, along with Blue Dog and Bernie G, handing entries out. Got to Jenolan Caves around 3 or so, meaning I missed out on seeing the Caves AGAIN! Had dinner at Caves House on Friday night with my partner, Blue Dog and Bernie G, Aunty Karin and Truckie, Bandanna, and Alison.

Got up early on race morning and went for a quick jog. Headed down to Katoomba with Blue Dog, Bernie G and my partner. Met up with Sarge, and walked to the start. Great, nervous tinged atmosphere, with a real feeling of people united to tackle a common foe.

Took it pretty easy down the Nellie’s Glen stair case. Cruised to Cox’s in 1:23 or so, and felt like a million bucks at the drink station there. Took it easy on the long hard climb to Pluvio, arriving at 1:53, having had numerous people pass me. Didn’t feel fantastic, but thought a bit of a feed would see me right. First stop out of the drink station, WHAM! Cramp in the right vastus medialis. Hobbled along, got this sorted, and then the left one went. Also got one in the right forearm for my trouble.

It was pretty well musical cramps all the way through the Black Ranges through to the forestry roads before the campgrounds at Deviation. I didn’t feel (relatively speaking) too bad through the new section, got across Caves Road, struggled through the trail section, before coming reasonably good on the downhill of the Mt George firetrail where I passed a lot of people. Managed to battle home in 5:20:25, about 50 minutes outside what I was hoping for – and on reflection, was not capable of.

A lot of lessons to be taken about training and in-race nutrition to be learned. I won’t bore you with the details here.

Focus now is to get through Canberra, and then focus on getting my weight down and finding 10km speed. I’ll get in touch with Sean Williams in the weeks after Canberra and move on from there

So, I’m trying to ‘get back on the bike’ at the moment. Easter went pretty well, with a pretty reasonable 55km covered over the four days, and I’m back at the gym, back on the bike to and from work, and back in the pool. The enthusiasm’s slowly coming back – as always, it’s the people I run and share running experiences with that will help with this process.
Cautionary example indeed.